TIFF critics notebook: 'A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood,' 'Uncut Gems' shake up festival rhythms

TORONTO - In "A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood," Marielle Heller's quietly disarming new movie, Matthew Rhys plays Lloyd Vogel, an Esquire journalist tasked with writing a profile of Fred Rogers, the beloved television personality better known as Mister Rogers (played by Tom Hanks). Lloyd, a sardonic type with a misanthropic streak, approaches the assignment with reluctance and annoyance. Not known for going easy on his celebrity subjects, he isn't particularly interested in Fred's unfashionable brand of kindness, and he suspects, deep down, that it might in fact be a false front, a sugarcoated lie that generations of American children have swallowed whole.

I don't mean to project, but Lloyd's initial reaction to Fred - irritated, bored, bewildered - couldn't help but remind me of the skepticism with which critics sometimes respond, or are thought to respond, to